What a Shame

'Absorbing and clever, I fell in love with Mathilda'

Cathy Rentzenbrink

'A glorious new talent has arrived'

Emma Gannon

'Full of heart, wit and feeling'

Caroline O'Donoghue

'Fizzes with energy, rage and love'

Jessica Moor

'A sterling debut . . . Mathilda's chilling but ultimately redemptive story will stay with me'

Laura Jane Williams

The idea of a curse was divisive, but the assertion that I had, for some time now, been 'laden with something dark' was disconcertingly unanimous.

I wondered if this was something you also saw in me, if that was why you left.

There is something wrong with Mathilda.

She's still reeling from the blow of a gut-punch break up and grieving the death of a loved one.

But that's not it.

She's cried all her tears, mastered her crow pose and thrown out every last reminder of him.

But that's not helping.

Concerned that she isn't moving on, Mathilda's friends push her towards a series of increasingly unorthodox remedies.

Until the seams of herself begin to come undone.

Tender, unflinching and blisteringly funny, What a Shame glitters with rage and heartbreak, and offers up the joy of self-acceptance through an extraordinary rite of passage to overcome the prickly heat of female shame.

'Tender and searingly honest - I couldn't stop reading'

Angela Scanlon

'A painfully exquisite book'

Camilla Pang

“Absorbing and clever, I fell in love with Mathilda”

An intelligent, moving and darkly comic debut, taking us deftly from serious explorations of trauma and consent to riotously funny scenes of modern life - it's like Fleabag with a sprinkling of the occult. The Sunday Times
Tipped to be THE hit book of 2022 Daily Mail
Affecting, clever and blisteringly humorous... a riveting read about heartbreak, female shame and self-acceptance -- Sarra Manning Red Magazine
Hits the nail on the head . . . above all it's a really beautiful portrayal of female friendship. -- Laura Hackett Times Radio
Dazzling . . . By turns funny, sharp, raw and overwhelming, this is one of those novels where you think you are exploring someone else's pain, only to realise you are actually exploring your own -- Read of the Week Heat
Alternately haunting and hilarious . . . an original and zeitgeisty story about grief, friendship, secrets, shame and self-acceptance. Daily Mail
It's LOL, ever-so-relatable and will also have you weeping into a snotty tissue. Love, love, love Cosmopolitan
A modern story of grief and loss Refinery29
Bergstrom's prose, and especially the core dynamic of Mathilda and her friends (a coven of voice notes and anxious love) has a sweet verisimilitude that is delightfully frank, (re)inscribing warmth and intimacy for warmth and intimacy's sakes. And if it all seems a bit familiar - the millennial hodgepodge of tarot, bad dates, housemates and female trauma - well, maybe this is also the point. Maybe these stories are more common than we want to believe. The Skinny
Absorbing and clever . . . I fell in love with Mathilda -- Cathy Rentzenbrink
Raw and unexpected and weird and utterly brilliant -- Otegha Uwagba
As soon as I finished the final page of What a Shame a deep ache set in. Written by one of the cleverest and boldest writers I've ever read, it is a powerful, beautiful, fascinating novel that will be read for years by any and all young women looking for a friend. I already miss Mathilda. -- Scarlett Curtis
Comparisons to Sally Rooney are inevitable, but this heartfelt, sharp-yet-tender novel earns its own place in the spotlight -- Erin Kelly
What A Shame weaves eternal themes of grief and heartbreak against a modern canvas that is clear and recognisable. There's a piercing sense of what happens when your tragedy becomes your anecdote, and your anecdote becomes tiring to the people around you. Full of heart, wit and feeling, Bergstrom is a new voice but sure to be an enduring one. -- Caroline O'Donoghue
A brilliant debut -- Cariad Lloyd
Raw, poignant, haunting (and hilarious!)... In Mathilda, Bergstrom has created a clear-eyed heroine for a new generation. -- Sam Baker
Truly captivating, blisteringly funny, so clever and perceptive and beautifully written. It made me want to voicenote all my friends immediately. I loved it! -- Lauren Bravo
A book that simultaneously punches you in the gut and makes you snort with laughter. It's beautifully raw in its delivery. A glorious new talent has arrived -- Emma Gannon
Dark, nuanced and provocative, this is a sterling debut that fans of Caroline O'Donoghue, Holly Bourne and Emma Jane Unsworth are sure to love. Mathilda's chilling - but ultimately redemptive - story will stay with me. -- Laura Jane Williams
Razor-sharp, compelling and darkly funny. An extraordinary novel that will stay with me for a long time. -- Laura Kay
What a Shame fizzes with energy, rage and love, burrowing deep into those experiences that define us at our core. Bergstrom writes with wit and wisdom, and Mathilda's voice is ever-incisive, fresh and compelling. -- Jessica Moor
I fell hard for Mathilda and her tale of heartache, grief and acceptance. Like most of us, she's a bit weird and a bit wild, and you'll be so glad you met her. -- Laura Pearson
A wry and zeitgeisty look at grief, heartbreak and the fix-you industry, What a Shame asks whether we can ever expect closure from our worst and most secret pain and fear. A must-read for anyone who has ever felt defined by a break-up. -- Harriet Walker
Crackles with wit and emotional insight . . . so good on tangled webs of feeling, the power of female friendships, and hope -- Emma Hughes
Dark, complex and very funny. A dazzling debut about the power of self-belief, sisterhood and letting go -- Hannah Tovey
A book that beautifully balances the light and the dark. I loved spending time with Mathilda, a heroine who's funny, wise, wonderfully weird and brave, and who feels like a friend. -- Chloë Ashby
Tender, searingly honest and widely vulnerable. I couldn't stop reading -- Angela Scanlon
An absolute corker - tender, sexy and weird. I can't wait to see what she writes next -- Michelle Thomas
My favourite kind of book: the kind that you can't help but race through, leaves you immediately devastated when you finish it and envious of everyone who has yet to read it. -- Dr Soph
A painfully exquisite book, by a unique talent that has single handedly rewritten the narrative of female shame -- Camilla Pang
Abigail Bergstrom's assured debut is a forensic excavation of the female psyche - on friendship, grief, and the secrets we keep to survive. -- Laura Bailey
A beautiful, raw story of self-acceptance and shame that haunted me until I finished the last page. Reading Abigail's debut captured the pain and release that comes with laughing at a funeral. I swallowed the story in big gulps and will push it towards my friends. An ambitious, beautifully balanced novel that manages to strike laughter and heartache in equal measure. -- Abigail Mann
[A] wry, poignant meditation on female shame, healing and friendship Culture Whisperer
What a Shame is an absorbing experience; the story is strange yet brilliant . . . it's dark and raw and funny, with a woman on an emotionally engulfing journey at its centre . . . like Sorrow and Bliss on acid . . . A real gem. Well Read with Anna Bonet
Abigail Bergstrom's darkly funny debut is a sharply observed account of a group of young women finding their way and discovering that they are more powerful than they imagined Daily Mail

Abigail Bergstrom is a Welsh writer and has written for national magazines and broadsheets, including ELLE, Sunday Times Style, the Telegraph and Refinery29. She has worked in publishing for over a decade and is an industry leader and an expert in navigating the cross section between digital and print, speaking at international conferences on the subject. She's edited some of Britain's most prominent feminist voices, was nominated for Literary Agent of the Year 2020 and was listed in 'The Bookseller 150' for shepherding over thirty titles onto bestseller lists and building some of today's biggest book brands. An intersectional feminist campaigner, she co-founded the campaign 'This Doesn't Mean Yes' which was covered in the media internationally. She lives in London with her boyfriend and her Italian Greyhound, Luca. What a Shame is her debut novel.

'Absorbing and clever, I fell in love with Mathilda' Cathy Rentzenbrink 'A glorious new talent has arrived' Emma Gannon 'Full of heart, wit and feeling' Caroline O'Donoghue 'Fizzes with energy, rage and love' Jessica Moor 'A sterling debut . . . Mathilda's chilling but ultimately redemptive story will stay with me' Laura Jane Williams The idea of a curse was divisive, but the assertion that I had, for some time now, been 'laden with something dark' was disconcertingly unanimous. I wondered if this was something you also saw in me, if that was why you left. There is something wrong with Mathilda. She's still reeling from the blow of a gut-punch break up and grieving the death of a loved one. But that's not it. She's cried all her tears, mastered her crow pose and thrown out every last reminder of him. But that's not helping. Concerned that she isn't moving on, Mathilda's friends push her towards a series of increasingly unorthodox remedies. Until the seams of herself begin to come undone. Tender, unflinching and blisteringly funny, What a Shame glitters with rage and heartbreak, and offers up the joy of self-acceptance through an extraordinary rite of passage to overcome the prickly heat of female shame.'Tender and searingly honest - I couldn't stop reading' Angela Scanlon 'A painfully exquisite book' Camilla Pang

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